Newt Gingrich personally urged members of Congress to vote for a controversial Medicare expansion bill in 2003, two Republicans who were in the room said this week.

Gingrich, who is running for president, has said he never lobbied members of Congress after he resigned as House speaker in 1998. But U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake and former congressman Butch Otter told The Des Moines Register this week that Gingrich helped persuade reluctant Republicans to vote for the Medicare prescription-drug program, which barely passed.

Flake and Otter, who have endorsed Mitt Romney for president, said about 30 Republican House members were holding out against the bill in the fall of 2003 because they feared the proposal would expand the federal deficit. Proponents brought in Gingrich, who addressed a private meeting of Republican House members, they recalled. “He told us, ‘If you can’t pass this bill, you don’t deserve to govern as Republicans,’ ” said Flake, who represents an Arizona district. “…If that’s not lobbying, I don’t know what is.”

Otter, who is now governor of Idaho, agreed. “I can’t define lobbying, but as a Supreme Court justice once said about pornography, I know it when I see it,” he said. “I felt we were being lobbied.”

However, the head of a government ethics watchdog group and the Gingrich campaign both disputed those assertions on Tuesday.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center For Responsive Politics, said what Gingrich did probably was not technically lobbying.

“It’s such a nebulous term. What is lobbying? Unfortunately, I think he gets a pass,” said Krumholz, a national expert on money in politics and efforts to influence Congress.

The nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based group is pushing for tighter reporting rules, so that anyone who lobbies elected officials would have to report his or her activities. Under current rules, Krumholz said, people don’t have to register as lobbyists unless they spend at least 20 percent of their time lobbying or helping others do so and unless they make more than one contact with elected officials and certain staff members.

If Gingrich didn’t speak on behalf of someone who was employing him, Krumholz said, he generally would not have to declare himself a lobbyist in order to speak to House members about a bill. “But to the average person, of course he was lobbying,” she said.

Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond also denied that the former speaker’s actions amounted to lobbying. “At no point was Newt Gingrich ever a lobbyist,” he said Tuesday. He said Gingrich was not paid for meeting with the House members.

“On multiple occasions, both in public and private venues, he often promoted good ideas, and this occasion is no different. Making an argument for a good idea and having a conversation about policy is certainly something any respectable member of Congress is capable of doing.” By “member of Congress,” Hammond said he was referring to Flake and Otter.

Flake said there were other times when Gingrich gave more general talks to members of Congress, which Flake said should not be considered lobbying. However, in this case, he said, Gingrich urged members to vote a specific way on a specific bill, which is lobbying.

Flake and Otter said they were surprised to hear Gingrich claim recently that he never lobbied Congress. Gingrich has said he earned millions of dollars working as an adviser to various groups, including health care companies and the mortgage-industry giant Freddie Mac, without directly lobbying lawmakers.

The Medicare-expansion bill, which was supported by President George W. Bush, squeaked through the House in November 2003 on a vote of 220-215.

Flake said the former House speaker was brought to the 2003 meeting by Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican who led the effort to pass the bill, then left Congress to become head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Flake voted against the Medicare bill, which he said added huge unfinanced costs to the federal government. “It was the biggest expansion of an entitlement program since Medicare was instituted,” Flake said. “It was a terrible, terrible thing for Republicans to do.”

Otter said his impression was that Gingrich was lobbying that day on behalf of the Bush administration, but he’s not sure. He doesn’t remember exactly what Gingrich said. “My posture in listening to this was he was full of crap, and I wasn’t going to buy it,” Otter said.

Otter said he opposed the bill because it lacked a way to pay for its billions of dollars in costs, but he switched his vote to yes at the last minute because Bush administration officials convinced him that if it failed, Democrats and some Republicans would push through an even more expensive version.